I love how the beaches transform into free tent campings

Still end-May 2022, I felt like it would be nice to see some more other humans and so I headed to a beach that is easily accessible and not very far from a town.

At that beach were two restaurants. One got prepared for the summer season and the other was open and that means: FRENCH FRIES TIME! I love french fries and so I get them occasionally when there is a chance for it.

On the weekdays I spent at that beach with its beautiful cave, there were only a few other people around. But when the weather got better on the weekend, Greeks came along and transformed the beach into a little tent village. I love it. For me being allowed to wild camp like this is a sense of freedom. It just feels right.

Fighting windmills in perfect shades of green and where Rosinante’s name is coming from

After having spent a week on a beach at the end of May 2022 on Evia in Greece, a storm came up and I decided to seek shelter from it. And I think, I found the most beautiful shelter in the shadows of a small mountain surrounded by the wonderful facets of green.

When I moved on, the storm was still blowing and spinning the huge wind turbines on Evia. These turbines are really massive. Maybe they have the size of small offshore ones. And because there is nothing preventing the wind to hit them, they have pretty small towers in relation to their blades. Standing underneath these blades feels like they will cut you right through.

A friend reminded me that standing underneath these wind turbines is like Don Quixote’s famous battles against the windmills. And that’s where Rosinante’s name is coming from: I love sci-fi and was enjoying the book series “The Expanse” a lot when I bought Rosinante. In the books, there is an interesting crew living adventures on a space corvette called Rosinante. They name it after the horse Don Quixote is riding on. I like how the name sounds in German more than in the English version “Rocinante” and the name stands for more than just a spaceship and a horse. As far as I got it, nobody can say for sure what the stories about Don Quixote are standing for. I like the image of a confused guy who thinks that he is a noble knight riding on his noble steed and accomplishing adventurous missions, taking glorious battles in the name of his princess love, followed by his loyal companion Sancho Panza and therefore getting highly regarded by the people. But in truth, he’s just an old, run-down guy on his old nag confused by having read romances and doing stupid things. I think we are all Don Quixote. Some more, some less.

When I had started my journey, I had been more Don Quixote than I’m now, I would say. I’m quite sure, that a part of me wanted to go on a glorious world tour in a magnificent offroad camper to have breathtaking adventures and get highly regarded by others for it. That part had been like chasing happiness by fighting windmills and I’m happy to have given up that fight.

And there is another cool story about the name Rosinante and overlanding. But I spare that one for one of my future posts.